


indak

by kayselya



Category: El Filibusterismo, Noli Me Tangere & Related Works - José Rizal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, M/M, Relationship Study, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayselya/pseuds/kayselya
Summary: It was the night before Juanito's wedding, and he was on Placido's doorstep, drenched from the rain.





	indak

**Author's Note:**

> so i finally got to write penilaez angst, as i was prompted by that up dharma down song and shakespeare's fair youth sequence (thank you, shakespeare, for being bi). the excerpts included in this fic come from sonnet 36 (but really, sonnets 33-36 made me push through with this idea). here's to a tentative escape from writer's block!

_Let me confess that we two must be twain_  
_Although our undivided loves are one:_  
_So shall those blots that do with me remain,_  
_Without thy help by me be borne alone._

 

His mother would advise him to take three deep breaths when things got out of hand. Placido would remember too many a time that he'd clench his fists, suck in air, and avert his gaze to a corner of a room (or something, just something) distracting and calming enough for his unpredictable nerves. He was a good student, an amiable son, but bad professors and unlucky recitations caused him this coping habit. Rarely did he erupt, and when he did it would be because of an annoying seatmate back in college. Placido eventually grew to tolerate this seatmate, this blockmate and class bully who was more (so much more) than his facade of lopsided smiles. They were friends, then enemies, then both friends and enemies, until they'd have to part ways: Placido into law practice (passing the board in the first try), and Juanito Pelaez pushing through with family business as the trust fund heir was wont to be. They kept in touch, in a figurative and in a literal sense.

 

They were friends, then enemies, then both friends and enemies; until they became more than that and things got out of hand. Placido took in his three deep breaths. Juanito kept his lopsided smiles. It was raining and it was night, stuck in the middle of July, in the dingy Sta. Cruz apartment building of Placido. It was 1am, seven hours before Juanito's wedding, and the groom-to-be was on Placido's doorstep.

 

"You're a madman, you know that?" murmured Placido, knuckles going white around the threshold frame. Juanito chuckled, droplets from his hair landing on the mat as the dim hallway light accentuated how soaked his figure was. Placido was a light sleeper, the lines under his eyes permanent (only hidden when he'd wear glasses), so when a knock on his door at one in the morning roused him up, the adopted Manileño vigilance in him nearly socked Juanito's jaw. He justified that he hardly recognized Juanito ("You forgot to bring an umbrella,"), but the unexpected guest merely shrugged and lifted his sole baggage ("but you brought your violin.").

 

Juanito pouted, slicking his wet hair back. "Please let me in?"

 

"Do you know what day it is today?" Placido, nevertheless, held the door open. Juanito did not answer, just whistled what was probably a piece he was fixated on playing those days as he stepped inside (Placido recognized it as APO Hiking Society's ballad 'Di Na Natuto). Both proceeded to the kitchen, as though out of instinct, and Placido switched on the light. He prepared two mugs, rummaging through the drawers for teaspoons. "Coffee?"

 

"Barako?" Juanito took his seat, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin on them.

 

"You crashed into a Batangueño's place," Placido sat opposite, the familiar jar of the dark brown powder laid in front. He rolled his eyes. "Of course I have some."

 

He didn't have to scold Juanito. Placido knew why he was here. It was no lie that nights like these were typical, in secret rooms and in secluded sheets, but they had ended it not long ago (yielding and tears held back, giving up in the same kitchen). Juanito was just naturally stubborn and reckless and stupid to come barging in once more: at this night, out of all the nights he could possibly choose from.

 

Placido didn't have to bring it up again, only waited for the thermos to click so he could make their cups of coffee in silence. The rain pattered in ceaseless thrums, clouding the windows into a blur of orange lamplights decking Escolta street. Juanito disappeared into the only one bedroom in the house, emerging a minute later with a towel draped over his head (Placido always forgot to pack Juanito's towel, as was his excuse to himself). They drank their mugs against the eerie glow, voices still to communicate, but the eyes already spoke the unsaid.

 

_In our two loves there is but one respect,_  
_Though in our lives a separable spite,_  
_Which though it alter not love's sole effect,_  
_Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight._

 

"It helps me think." Juanito sipped his last. He went on tracing circles on the mug's brim. Placido knitted his brows. "I brought the violin because it helps me think."

 

"That's a start. I didn't know you actually think."

 

"I do. I think about you all the time."

 

Juanito was a careless man who'd throw away his words into the wind in various forms of flattery and mockery. He was a great actor (he would star in his grandest role, sometime soon at the altar of a cathedral in Intramuros), and only the rarest few could distinguish where his act stops and where his genuity begins. Placido was one of those rarest few, a sigh escaping his lips as he realized the weight of Juanito's words (the truth in them, constructed with an underlying lamentation).

 

"I shouldn't have made you coffee," and Placido was a great evader (of crowded streets in favor of alleyways, of moments Juanito would woo him with the violinist's strings), but sometimes he evaded things with a fail, too. "You have got to sleep, it's your wedding day for crying out loud. Hell, I shouldn't have opened that goddamn door. I should have convinced you to go home. I should have—"

 

"It's my wedding day, Penitente, let me do what I want."

 

Juanito should have used Placido's nickname.

 

"Paulita knows," but instead he continued, calming his initial tone. "I told her I'll fix things, clear things up. She said she'll forget all about the secret, like she never even knew. She's too good for me, I know that, but I have to do this. I have to choose her."

 

Juanito didn't need to explain. Trying to was enough. But if only Placido could hear it one last time, the name he had despised all those years, but learned to fondly accept in the end, then it would be more than just enough to bring back afternoons spent cutting classes and Juanito spending Placido's money (the rich but frugal beloved making up to him a week later). He could remember everything in a blink, and could embrace them as distant echoes of a past affair ought to be kept from afar.

 

"Makaraig called yesterday, said he'll pay me to write his best man's speech."

 

"I told him to."

 

"You're such a dumbass."

 

"Of course, Placiding. Of course."

 

_I may not evermore acknowledge thee,_  
_Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame;_  
_Nor though with public kindness honor me_  
_Unless thou take that honor from thy name;_

 

When Placido asked him how Isagani was keeping up, Juanito said that the man would be well in due time ("Heartache is the poet's constant companion, after all.") Placido called him a sadist, to which Juanito replied that he wasn't: he was only a masochist for bringing himself into his lost love's abode ("You're the one that got away, Placidete."), requesting a last kiss and a last song to play before the rain lets up ("Just grant me this."). A reluctant Placido agreed, just because the violin cast its spell on him like a siren's voice. Juanito played a melancholic but beautiful melody (for the most beautiful things in the world could also be the loneliest), and sent his farewell through the curated push and pull of his bow.

 

At the last note's fading, their lips met. It was chaste and deep, a wrong disguised as a right, yet that was the only concept they recognized as star-crossed beings in their own comedy fated to be a tragedy. Juanito, though ever the daredevil, didn't dare to say the words ("Why would I say goodbye, when I'll still see you on the wedding?"). But Placido, driven and impulsive, would.

 

"I can say goodbye then. Idiot, how do you know I'll go?"

 

" _You're_ the idiot. You already sent an RSVP. Do you know how hard it is to arrange tables and make sure no one in the guestlist will be seated beside someone they don't want to be seated with?"

 

"Don't tell me I'll be seated next to Pecson."

 

"Actually, it's Tadeo."

 

"And so, I'm not going." (It wasn't true, Placido attended anyway.)

 

They laughed at that, Juanito dropping the argument with a wave of his hand. He defended Tadeo by saying that their lazy arse of a friend could entertain Placido with his usual white lies and made-up scenarios (because, unlike real stories, they could go on forever and "Imagine the possibilities, Placiding! You wouldn't want Sandoval instead, would you?"). They'd be okay. Placido would be okay, would swallow his pain at the ceremony and at every time Juanito would kiss someone not him.

 

"Do you love her?" he asked, when Juanito was ready to leave.

 

Juanito smiled, not the smug and cocky one, but the one where he'd only lift the corner of his lips; that one smile engulfed in thought. "It's a different kind of love."

 

It was a correct love, Juanito elaborated, correct in the sight of many; but not as great as what they had shared, what was once theirs alone. Placido had to stop him before he could turn into an Isagani and expound on soulmates not ending up together, so Juanito simply squeezed his hand. Placido led him to the door.

 

"Imagine if we got married," said Juanito, glancing back. "Whose name would it be?"

 

"The wedding would be canceled altogether because we'd argue about that to no end."

 

" _Que horror._ "

 

Juanito was outside again, no longer soaked, not anymore trembling from the cold. It was 3am when the downpour dissipated. Placido held onto the knob, wishing he would never turn it shut. He'd imprint this Juanito in his mind, tucked in the recesses of his memory he'd keep for dear life; this Juanito whose face would begin to show a new expression foreign to him before, something caught in the midst of sorrow and acceptance. Placido understood that Juanito would have to live with that feeling, that obscure glint in his eyes, despite his carefree disposition ebbing to oblivion. For once, Juanito would have to know what it meant to be sad over someone he had to let go. They could have been great together. They could have. They used to be kids.

 

"But if we _did_ marry."

 

Juanito Pelaez was always too stubborn (and reckless, and stupid) for his own good.

 

"In another life we would."

 

Placido Penitente took a deep breath (just one, one would have to do) and pushed the door closed.

 

_But do not so; I love thee in such sort_  
_As, though being mine, mine is thy good report._

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and feedback are happy endings (you can also reach me via curiouscat.me/tetsuroh) ♥


End file.
